college, and i just wanted to try it out. i started working in economic development policy. i was a community organizer for six years. i worked with young people, parents, and families around issues that concern our neighborhoods, whether it was improving muni lines, affordable housing, public schools, or just planning issues in neighborhoods. we just had a hearing last week, and we are trying to do some work around bedbug enforcement, which is a major issue in the tenderloin and of hill and 63. a hearing will actually be on thursday, april 7, 10:30. we're doing our first hearing on pedestrian safety. i think public safety is a huge concern. it ranges from both low-level crimes to pedestrian safety, and so that is a really important issue to me.

7:45pm

we are probably more than double what every other district has. and that are preventable. and we can do better. district 6 is one -- home to one of the most diverse constituencies. we have the poorest residents in san francisco. we have lgbt. we have immigrants, people of color, youth, and a high proportion of seniors in the city as well. we heard that people want to see more jobs, want to see access to more jobs for our residents. we want to see more preventive instead of just reactive. we want to see after-school programs versus the police picking them up because they are out on the street, which i think our chief agrees with. i actually ran for the board of education in san francisco and got to serve a term on our school board. what really surprised me was how much i enjoyed it. i loved it. i love meeting with families, meeting with youth, meeting with

7:46pm

teachers, visiting schools, and getting a deeper understanding of what it means to make our system work better. the one thing i really enjoyed was i got to run within a district instead of citywide, was that i really got to know voters and residents. i actually enjoy campaigning more because i had time to knock on doors and the voters individually. i'd love it. i actually really enjoyed being out on the field. so i spent a lot of time doing it because i got to really get a deeper understanding of what people care about and what people's concerns are and also what people loved about the district and the city. i was talking with the mayor yesterday. he was very interested in seeing how the good work with our office -- how he could work with our office. i would love to see how we could support small businesses because they are the heart at san francisco. they provide 60% 07% of the jobs in sanford cisco, and they

7:47pm

provide it locally, and they are not going to offshore their jobs any time. i am not an opponent of cleaning up the tenderloin. i love the tenderloin. i love what is right now. i recognize we have a diversity of books that live there and people do not want to see open drug dealing. i do not have a problem with people lit think -- people out on the street socializing. i think that is good. that to me is more -- you know, it is part of the character of the neighborhood. i get to represent one of the most exciting and dynamic districts in the city. it is where change is happening, so i think it is exciting in terms of how we can model what it means to be a smart growth neighborhood, how we can use transit and housing effectively to serve our city and also to do a lot of the new green policies that we have developed over the last 10 years.

7:48pm

supervisor wiener: what we have here is a very important project and a very important mission and a completely reasonable objection of neighbors who are concerned about a five-story building going in on their block, which is something we see in san francisco all the time, and there is nothing exceptional or inappropriate about people taking issue with the size of a building. i grow up in the philadelphia area, in new jersey, went to

7:49pm

school up and down the east coast. i went to undergrad at duke university and law school at harvard. after clerking for a judge, i came out here and have been in here for the last 14 years. i always assumed i would go back to the philadelphia area because that is where my family is, but i was always interested in sanford cisco in terms of the city, culture, the amazing lgbt community -- i was always interested in san francisco. i am an attorney. i started off in private practice, doing complex litigation. in 2002, i moved to the san francisco city attorney's office, where our work on the trial team, doing trials for the city and doing my own cases and supervising a team of attorneys as well.

7:50pm

another huge issue confronting the city is the deferred maintenance on our infrastructure. we have a lot of infrastructure that has been deteriorating because we have not maintained it properly, from our roads to our sewer system to muni. we need to be much more diligent about maintaining our infrastructure. i have been interested in politics since i was a kid. i have worked on campaigns since i was a teenager. i was involved in campaigning against senator jesse helms when i was in college. when i came out here i was not initially involved politically. i was involved in community work, helping to build the lgbt community center, doing neighborhood work, and i eventually started doing campaigns and gradually got more involved in democratic party politics. ultimately, in 2004, i ran for the democratic county central committee and ended up chairing

7:51pm

the committee. it was a gradual process for me. by the time i started thinking about running for supervisor, it made sense because of my involvement in the community and the politics. i knock on about $15,000 -- i knocked on about 15,000 doors and a huge amount of people. the best way to learn about the city and what people want and what people's concerns are. i feel like i know so much more than before i started campaigning. i am a good liberal democrat. in the san francisco, miniature spectrum, i am considered pretty middle of the road. one thing about me is i am very independent when it comes to the issues, and i do not vote on party lines. i judge each issue on its merit. we have provided woefully inadequate support for our transition-age youth, and when

7:52pm

we do not provide that support, we end up causing other problems. it is not like it disappears. these are our youth, who are here in our community, and we need to make sure we are providing services for them. yesterday, we had a hearing on the dcyf budget, and i was very disappointed with one aspect of the budget, particularly the alt and backs were being eliminated -- that all add-backs were being eliminated on a number of different subjects. i do not agree with that. i am in discussions with dcyf, and i am is hopeful we will be able to work something out. my predecessor was always committed to making sure funding occurred, and i will continue to do that, so you have an ally in me.

7:53pm

the budget is the most eminent issue, and we do have a structural budget deficit in the city, so we need to deal, of course, with the short-term balancing our budget in a way that does not decimate city services that people rely on, but also to address our long- term structural budget deficit, and that means implementing some budget reforms. smooth out our budget process so it is not a boom/bust kind of budget. reforming our pension system and retiree health care system so that they are stable. we do a decent job providing low-income housing. we do a terrible job providing housing for low or middle class and middle-class people, people who are working and paying taxes that we need to have here for a functioning economy, so i am looking for ways to try to fund that, particularly for essential employees like

7:54pm

teachers, nurses, first responders. projects coming up in the city like the renovation of dolores park, which is a once in 50 years opportunity to define what the park is and what changes we want to make to it. that will be a very significant projects. [inaudible] when was the last time it rained? there are puddles. we elect our supervisors by district, and it is very important to pay attention to the district, to be engaged in projects in the district, but we also represent the whole city. any supervisor that just focuses on the district without addressing the citywide issues is not doing his or her job. every day, i'd make sure i am working both on the citywide issues and on district issues.

7:55pm

>> i just want to make a public statement to acknowledge that appointments to the police commission and any commission which is a policy-making body is very important. i want to encourage about keep in front of our minds the importance of not only to elect women, but to work to get more women appointed to these bodies that help make legislative

7:56pm

decisions for our city and county of san francisco. >> i am from san francisco. i grew up in the local neighborhood. i did my under deprad wait work at fisk university, where i studied political science with a concentration in public administration and worked eight years largely in the public sector. then i earned a master's degree from carnegie melon in pittsburg, pennsylvania. i spent some time as assistant executive director for a non-profit. we did work if a lot of kids in the neighborhood. i have done fundraising for candidates and issues. i have experience with the federal reserve bank of san francisco. when i look around my neighborhood and see the changes that are happening, i so there is no neighborhood grocery store. i see that small businesses in particular are coming and going, and they haven't been able to really sustain themselves. from my work experience in

7:57pm

working for the city in the mayor's office as well as in the non-profit, i had a good sense as to what some of the challenges were. when i look in the future, i could see more challenges coming. i thought i had a set of experiences and more importantly a passion and desire to serve. >> i understand that no one wants to have their programs cut. of course not. i also want everyone here to understand that no one up here wants to cut programs because they don't care about the population being served. there are no value ains here. we are all on the same team. it is a tough situation, as we are here so that we can begin the work together. >> i am actually more forward thinking. for me it is less about being left or right, or in this town, moderate or progressive. it is really about the issues and about creating policies that will have a sustainable and lasting positive impact on the families that live here. it is very costly and difficult to do business in sfrinls, to raise your children in san

7:58pm

francisco, and i would like to have a voice at that table to really create policies that will minimize that san francisco is not a big business-friendly city. i think we started to go in the wrong direction. the reason why we started walking down that path largely was because of political ideology. when you deal with me, you are dealing with facts, less than politics. i really want to have a positive impact on the city overall. >> good afternoon, everyone. how are you? >> good. >> it's a nice day today. thank you for coming out to our community event. please give a round of [applause] to them. we have a lot of development going on. you see how lovely leland street looks. do you like it? >> yes. >> beautiful, isn't it? we are going to continue. we have a library that is going to be opening up in june. that's right. so i will see you all there at the library. there is a lot of activity going on. it is important we remain connected and engaged. >> would you mind if we were to

7:59pm

pull the seniors together and translate for me in a mini meeting? >> yes, sir. >> what we are going ready to do is we are going to have a quick little mini meeting to -- because we didn't translate my short message before. >> i just want to say i want to welcome everyone to the event. >> we have folks in visitation valley only talking with visitation valley. we have folks in bayview again only talking in a very small corridor of 3rd straight and the merchant corridor. we don't have people talking to the hill merchant association, doing patch. all these fragrmented conversations are happening, largely talking about the same thing, crime, keeping the streets clean, supporting sbaubs. that is something i made a concerted effort on the

8:00pm

campaign to build bridges. >> along third street, dog patch, and everyone along the cord door has the same complaint. >> i have the same complaint. >> we have the third street merchant corridor and an opportunity to revite lies what i consider to be the main artery of the business district. it is a pretty long street. there is a lot of opportunity there. let's not squander that. when we recruit businesses, we want it to be a healthy mix that reflects the cultural history of the southeast part of the city. we are all human, and how to connect with that human spirit, whether you are in public housing, own your own property, or if your asian, african-american, male or female, we are really a community. when we start to realize and move in the direction of being humans and having this human experience and connecting together, really if you will, being each other's keeper, then san francisco really begins to